I just wanted to thank everybody quick for all of the love! Like a lot of you who I heard from this story was kind of birthed from the fact that I hated the idea that Rachel and Shelby were able to fix everything that was wrong between them by saying like three words to each other and singing a song. It seemed like a waste of a plot and actors with so much depth. Also, I hated that they played everything with Quinn off like a joke when it was clear that she was hurting which seemed unfair so this is me taking a whack at it.
There will be some clarity between Rachel and Shelby as well as a little more insight to the meat and potatoes of this story in the next chapter so for now, I thank you for your patience. I am leaving for vacation on Sunday so I am hoping to have at least one more chapter headed your way before then.
Until next time, thanks again to everybody here. Hope you enjoy.
Chapter 2:
It has been a full week since Rachel had confronted Shelby on that dreadful first day of school and admittedly, not much has changed since.
Rachel has kept her distance from Shelby as promised. In turn, Shelby has respected her request to do the same.
Neither of them has so much as acknowledged the other beyond a head nod or a quick diversion of the eyes on the rare occasion that they did pass each other in the hallway.
Rachel had reluctantly informed her fathers about Shelby's return on the evening after her first day of school as the family sat around the dinner table.
She hardly wanted to have that conversation, but her fathers had inevitably asked Rachel how her first day of school went and the truth was written too plainly on her face for them not to pry.
Rachel is the type of girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and when her Daddy had made her favorite meal for dinner without her so much as taking a bite, both of her parents realized that something was wrong. They pestered her for information until she had no choice but to come clean.
Her fathers were upset, of course.
They were unhappy that Shelby had reappeared without warning, violating their legal contract for the second time in as many years, but the thing that really bothered them was the way that Shelby's presence seemed to be affecting their little girl.
The first time that Rachel and Shelby met had nearly broken Rachel and nobody could really blame the young girl for it. She hadn't asked for that, it had just happened. There was no segue, no transition, Shelby had simply been there one day and gone the next. She had left the pain behind with none of the responsibility to clean up after it.
To add insult to injury, despite the previous belief that a glee club comprised only of Sugar Motta would self-destruct on its own, Shelby was actually getting people to sign up in droves.
She had snagged a couple of Cheerios by advertising the club as a dance troupe and choir rather than a glee club. Apparently, the majority of the Cheerios weren't intelligent enough to realize that the two were the exact same thing.
The only thing that pissed Rachel off more than seeing Shelby's numbers go up was the fact that she hadn't thought of doing that first.
Meanwhile, tensions are running high inside of her own glee club.
The majority of that is her own fault, admittedly. She is being even more demanding than usual, stricter, more unbearable.
The thing is that lately, the more people tell her to calm down, the angrier Rachel gets.
Rachel knows that this is all Shelby's fault, but she cannot very well tell Shelby that so she takes it out on her glee club. Every glee rehearsal they'd had in the last week had proven to be worse than the one before. Worse yet, some of her teammates have started to threaten to defect to the Troubletones should Rachel continue to act irrationally, creating the very likely problem of a season-ending schism.
Rachel tries to cope by throwing all of her spare time into her classes and extracurriculars.
Before too long, she has not only glee, but Mock United Nations club as well, not to mention the lead in the school's production of West Side Story.
She tells everybody who warns her that she is going to burn herself out before the end of the month that she has to do this for her NYADA applications. The truth is that if she keeps busy enough, she will be too busy thinking about how tired she is to think about Shelby.
And Rachel really, really does not want to think about Shelby.
Rachel walks into William McKinley on the Monday of her second week of senior year determined to tilt her world back onto its proper axis.
Unfortunately, she finds that things are off to an abnormal start straight away when she walks into AP Biology only to find Quinn Fabray sitting in the bench chair directly next to the one that she occupies.
The blonde girl is back to being just that: blonde. Gone is any evidence of the pink that had been in her teased bob the last time Rachel had seen her. Instead, Quinn's features are soft and gentle. They are perfectly highlighted by a pale blue dress that hardly suits her personality.
She looks like she just stepped out of a nunnery and Rachel is forced to do a double take wondering if maybe Quinn was an evil twin and her good twin was now trying to spare her from falling down the path of self-destruction.
"I thought you dropped this class." Rachel swallows her surprise as she drops down into the empty seat next to Quinn.
"Yeah well, things change," Quinn tells her and while her features might be soft, her tone most certainly is not. So much for that evil twin theory. This was the same old Quinn Fabray that Rachel has always known.
"Like?" Rachel prompts but Quinn only shrugs.
"Maybe you should ask your mom," Quinn spits and it feels like a punch.
It is a low blow. Both Rachel and Quinn know this. Rachel thought that maybe her and Quinn had come to an unspoken truce last week in the common ground of being impossibly hurt by Shelby Corcoran, but now Rachel just wonders if that was wishful thinking.
The brunette feels herself retract and seethe. So much for this being the start of a brand-new week for her.
"She's not my mom," Rachel hisses, her voice projecting her offense despite her determination to hide it.
"Yes, she is," Quinn insists. She sounds as determined to make herself believe this as she is determined to make Rachel believe it. Quinn needs Rachel as an ally. The brunette might not know it yet, but they were going to need each other if they were going to get through this and that could never work if the two couldn't even see eye-to-eye.
"Why are you pushing this?" Rachel finally asks.
"Because if Shelby isn't your mom then that means that I'm not Beth's so how about you get over yourself for a second and think about somebody else for a change."
Rachel just manages to suppress a snort of distaste. She thinks that it is rich that Quinn of all people is telling her to stop being selfish, but it is neither the time or place for that conversation.
"You talked to Shelby," Rachel interprets Quinn's attitude and narrows it down to the source.
She tries not to feel jealous. She should be used to the fact that Shelby has reached out to everybody in this school except for her by now, but she still can't help but to feel hurt.
"Yes, I did, and she was pretty adamant about what I have to do in order to get Beth back."
Quinn gestures to her freshly blonde hair and light blue dress and all of a sudden, the change of appearance makes perfect sense to Rachel.
"I highly doubt that Shelby would be willing to just hand Beth over to you," Rachel rolls her eyes. She really doesn't want to be the one to ruin Quinn's hopes and dreams, but the blonde seems thoroughly convinced that coming to school today in a nice outfit would secure custody of her daughter by nightfall, and Rachel knows Shelby well enough not to hope for anything when it comes to her.
"Why not?" Quinn snorts, crossing her arms over her chest. "She didn't seem to care very much when she just handed you over."
The silence that follows is almost painful.
For a moment, Rachel is so shocked by Quinn's gall that she can't even immediately process the cruelty of her words. Even Quinn seems to be surprised by what had just come out of her mouth.
"You know Quinn," Rachel says after a moment when it becomes clear that Quinn has no intention of apologizing or even trying to correct herself. "It's going to take a lot more than a box of hair dye and a J. Crew dress to convince people that you're a good person. Anybody with two eyes and half a brain can see straight through your act."
"You know what Berry? Maybe you should mind your own business for a change."
"Whatever," Rachel rolls her eyes. She doesn't have the energy to ping-pong back and forth with Quinn Fabray. This is supposed to be her week. "You're the one who sat in the seat next to mine."
"Well I didn't know that it was your stupid freaking seat," Quinn shoots back, peeling herself back from her chair.
"Where are you going?" Rachel sighs, watching Quinn storm to the back of the classroom.
"I'm changing seats," Quinn informs her, settling into a desk all the way in the back of the classroom where she now knows she should have just gone to in the first place.
"Whatever," Rachel sighs, folding herself deeper inside of her own chair. She pulls herself forward and rests her chin inside of her hand, drumming her fingers against her skin softly, wanting this day to be over before it has even begun.
Quinn knew that it would only be a matter of time before Shelby cornered her.
Given the woman's track record of ignoring her own daughter, the blonde was hoping to have a bit more time to prepare, but much to Quinn's disappointment, Shelby's priorities are all out of order.
Shelby manages to get to Quinn late on Thursday afternoon, just as the blonde is preparing to ditch gym class in order to go to the gas station down the street with some of the Skanks to steal some snacks and cigarettes.
"What the hell?" Quinn rages, ripping her elbow out of Shelby's grip when the woman grabs onto her tight and attempts to steer her into an empty classroom.
She glares at the older woman hard with a look that she hopes might shake her, but Shelby looks unfazed.
"I've been looking for you for almost a week," she tells the blonde bluntly.
"How convenient," Quinn snorts. "Because I've been trying to avoid you for almost a week."
"You haven't been showing up to your classes," Shelby tells her. Her tone does not sound accusing or even particularly interested. Instead, she is merely stating a fact.
"I've been busy."
"Chain smoking with a gang of girls underneath the bleachers?" This time it is an accusation. Quinn reads the disappointment in Shelby's tone easily and wonders how much the woman could accomplish should she focus her energy on something that she could actually change.
"They're not a gang," Quinn rolls her eyes. "They're just my friends, alright?"
Quinn doesn't need this. She has enough people telling her what to do with her life. She doesn't need to hear it from Shelby Corcoran of all people now, too.
She pushes past Shelby, determined to leave quickly before the woman could stop her.
"I managed to get a hold of Noah on Tuesday," Shelby calls to her and Quinn freezes despite everything in her body telling her to keep going.
She grips the doorknob, that is how close she had come to escaping.
She understands that technically, she could still leave. It's not like Shelby is holding her hostage with a gun to her head, but in her own way, Quinn reasons that that is exactly what Shelby is doing.
She is not threatening her with bullets, she is threatening her with Beth, and they both knew that that was much more powerful.
"Don't you have your own problems to worry about?" Quinn asks. She is still gripping onto the doorknob, begging her brain to connect with her muscles long enough to walk out of this classroom, although it never does.
"I told him the same thing that I want to tell you," Shelby continues, ignoring Quinn's quip. "I wish that I could have told you both together."
"Cool story," Quinn swallows but her voice falters.
"I want you to be a part of Beth's life," Shelby pushes and that is when Quinn feels her grip on the doorknob loosen and her shoulders begin to shake.
"Seriously?" Quinn falters, finally turning back around to face Shelby who nods at her.
"That's part of the reason that I'm back."
"Did you let Puck see her?" Quinn asks, turning her eyes to the ground.
"Yesterday," Shelby confirms with a nod.
"When can I?" Quinn stiffens, suddenly determined.
"When I can trust you to be around her," Shelby narrows her eyes seriously at the blonde. "I know what you're going through Quinn, trust me. I went through the same exact thing after I gave Rachel up for adoption."
"You didn't give Rachel up for adoption," Quinn snaps despite the reminder that it is probably not in her best interest to do so right now, especially with Shelby holding Beth over her head like she is.
It is just that she hates that Shelby is comparing the two of them. Her and Shelby are nothing alike and she hates that Shelby thinks she can just snap her fingers, make a couple of comparisons, and try to relate in order to make up for everything she has done.
Quinn feels herself start to get angry again even though she knows that she is supposed to be working on that, even though she promised herself that she would do anything to get Beth back, even if that meant pretending to be nice to the woman who had taken her from her in the first place.
"I gave Beth up because I thought it was the best thing for her," Quinn continues before she can stop herself. "You got pregnant for money. You and me, we are nothing alike so stop trying to pretend like you know how I feel."
Shelby glares at the blonde, affronted. Her eyes show a glistening hurt, almost a fear for having said something so blatantly insensitive in front of the teenager who is clearly hurting right now.
"If you think that trying to relate to me is going to make either one of us feel better, you're wrong," Quinn continues in place of Shelby's silence. "Everybody knows the truth. Rachel hates you because of what you did to her and I can't say that I really blame her much. My daughter will not hate me. Not like that. Not ever."
Shelby's mouth opens and closes a handful of times, but she has nothing to follow up with and in the end, Quinn intercepts any attempt she could have made anyway by turning back around, this time committed to leaving.
She doesn't hesitate this time. Instead, when the blonde grabs the doorknob, she rips the door open so violently that it slams into the wall behind it.
"Clean up your act, Quinn," Quinn finally hears Shelby call the warning to her when she is already halfway out the door. "Only then will I even consider giving you the opportunity to see Beth. The choice is up to you."
Quinn is pulled back into reality by a sharp nudge in her ribs as an elbow connects with them hard.
She shoots up in her seat and only then does she realize that the entire classroom is staring at her.
Quinn turns towards the direction of the pain in her side and realizes that it is Rachel who has elbowed her. Try as she might to get away from the brunette, it turned out that every other seat in her biology classroom was already occupied thanks to her late addition to the class. In the end, Quinn had been assigned to the empty seat next to Rachel anyway.
Go figure.
Quinn quickly deduces that the reason that everybody is staring at her is because apparently, the teacher had asked her a question.
Quinn had been so absorbed trying to decide whether putting on this act for Shelby was worth it, or if she would be better off trying to get Beth back another way that she hadn't even heard it. Hell, she didn't even know what they were learning about.
She knows that she should be paying close attention. She has already missed a week of class. But how was she supposed to concentrate when her life was falling apart all around her?
"I'm sorry, what?" Quinn asks the teacher to repeat herself and tries to ignore the snickers and eye rolls coming from her classmates, who Quinn tries desperately not to think might actually have a point when they whisper about how she doesn't belong in a class like this.
"I asked if you can tell me what the difference between a dominant and a recessive gene is."
Genetics. Of course they are talking about genetics.
It is as though the universe is trying to punish her, like it doesn't want her to forget the awful mistake that she had made in letting another person raise her child.
Ironically, Quinn knows a lot about the differences between dominant and recessive genes.
She thinks back to the picture of Beth that Puck had shown her when she had cornered him about his visit last week and realizes that the difference between a dominant and a recessive gene is why Beth has her mother's hazel eyes as opposed to her father's muddled brown ones. It is why the little girl has blonde hair that sits neatly on top of her head in thin curls, but Puck's nose and his dimples and his smile.
Quinn knows all of this but of course, she can't very well say that out loud. She can't explain to her teacher or her classmates why Beth looks the way she does; a jumbled combination of her and Puck, perfect in every way. She can't explain why her daughter is there, and she is here, and why their paths never seem to cross.
She can't explain any of it.
"I don't know," Quinn grumbles softly instead and the class erupts in a soft giggle at Quinn's apparent ineptitude.
The only person not laughing at Quinn is Rachel. Instead, the brunette glances sideways, staring at the blonde with a look of concern.
Finally, she stiffens inside of her chair and coughs loudly with the answer to the question that the blonde could not bring herself to field, trying to spare Quinn the embarrassment that she is all too familiar with.
"A dominant gene is expressed even if only one allele is inherited," Rachel recites precisely. "A recessive trait has to have both copies of the allele in order to be expressed."
"Very good Rachel," the teacher nods and just like that, everybody seems to forget that it was Quinn who was supposed to answer that question in the first place.
The blonde sinks back inside of her seat and tries to smile at Rachel, thanking her for her discretion despite how terrible she treated her today and every other day before that.
Rachel nods back at her, but her lips are pressed into a thin line and in the end, they both decide to leave it just at that.
Rachel is sitting by herself later in the cafeteria when Finn slides into the seat next to hers.
The girl looks down into her salad trying to mask her disappointment. She doesn't know why her boyfriend has been driving her so crazy lately. They had had the most remarkable summer together and she had made so many plans for their senior year and beyond.
But then, the first day of school had happened and ever since then, the mere sight of him – and anybody else for that matter – made Rachel want to curl into a ball and disappear.
"Hey," Finn nods. It is the most obvious thing for him to say, yet for some reason it makes Rachel want to cry.
Admittedly, her emotions have been dialed up high lately, and although that has always been her default setting, historically, she was only just being dramatic. These emotions, these new emotions, they were very real, and Rachel is afraid that Finn just doesn't have the capacity to deal with her in this magnitude.
"Hi…" Rachel mumbles back, her voice quiet.
Finn's brows furrow in the center. He is having a hard time inferring whether or not Rachel is just in a week-long bad mood or if she is mad at him. Meanwhile, she is wondering whether she is being needy or if she really does need somebody who is better equipped to help her cope.
"I was looking for you after you got out of biology," he informs her and Rachel has to resist the urge to grimace blatantly.
"I stayed behind for a bit," Rachel answers, swirling the contents of her salad together with her fork. "Quinn registered for the class late and she needed some help catching up."
"So, are you and Quinn like… friends now or something?" Finn cocks an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?" Rachel asks, looking up at him.
"I mean that you guys seemed kind of off each other's radar last year," Finn shrugs. "Now all of a sudden you're helping her in biology class?"
"She's a part of the glee club, isn't she? It's my job as captain to help the glee club. It doesn't matter if it is with singing or with grades." Rachel makes the speech pointedly. Her lines seem rehearsed, like she is reciting them for a play. "Besides, I don't think that Quinn is looking to be friends with anybody right now."
"She chased you out of glee that one day," Finn reminds her of that glee rehearsal on their first day of school. Rachel hadn't realized that he has been keeping track.
"She thought that I was going to punch Shelby," Rachel shrugs. "She wanted to see it."
"And did you?" Finn asks. Rachel look offended that he even has to ask.
"Of course not," she sighs, but she has had enough and immediately gathers up her belongings in preparation to leave. She doesn't want to be questioned by Finn anymore, or by anybody for that matter. In fact, the only thing that she does want is to be left alone.
"Listen Finn, I have to go to the library," she tells him. "Last night was my dad's birthday and we went out to dinner to celebrate so I didn't finish all of my homework. I'll see you later at glee."
It's not a total lie. That is what helps Rachel justify it when she grabs her lunch tray and walks away from Finn before he can call her back.
Halfway to the garbage, Quinn brushes past her trailed by a handful of Skanks. They are all holding trays from the hot lunch line which means that the reason they are so late to lunch is probably because they were stealing money from some poor, unsuspecting freshman.
Rachel watches Quinn and doesn't even realize that her feet have stopped moving.
She stares at the blonde trying to read her, trying to figure out why this powerful magnetic force seems to have linked them together ever since Shelby's return.
Rachel wonders how much longer it is going to take for the two of them to stop brushing off their continuously crossing paths as coincidence and start to realize that their best bet was to figure out how to work together.
"Walk much, loser?"
Rachel is staring so hard at Quinn that she doesn't even realize how long it's been until one of the Skanks shoulders her so hard into the wall behind her that she is surprised it doesn't leave a hole in the tile.
Rachel looks up at the girl, her face compressed with pain.
The Skank is a large, formidable girl who looks like she is at least twenty years old even though she is only a junior. Her skin is tanned, but it is not a natural tan. Instead, it looks like she had spent the summer working outside in the hot, Ohio sun.
She is smiling at Rachel, but it is a malicious smile as she palms the underside of Rachel's lunch tray and flips its contents straight into Rachel's chest.
The force of the blow pushes Rachel's back against the wall again.
The brunette feels the strawberry yogurt that she hadn't had the stomach to eat splatter against her chest, then she hears the laughter of the crowded cafeteria.
Rachel doesn't even have the energy to cry.
The Skank that had attacked her had intended on bringing her down, but she didn't know that Rachel was already feeling so dejected that there is no room for her to feel any worse.
The lack of a response from the small brunette seems to bore the Skank who attacked her. The girl walks away without so much as another word and rejoins the rest of her group, amongst them Quinn, who is starting at Rachel hard.
Who seems to be the only person on this planet who isn't laughing at her.
Quinn goes to see Shelby after biology class.
Last Thursday, the woman had warned her to turn over a new leaf, and despite her outburst, Quinn had spent the weekend thinking it over and now felt ready to prove to Shelby that she was ready to see Beth.
Quinn could tell that Shelby was skeptical about her sudden change of heart, but the blonde still manages to convince her to a supervised visit of Beth at Shelby's apartment on Wednesday night.
It is much more than what Quinn had been anticipating, and she rounds back into the hallway with a little extra pep in her step.
"There you are Blondie," Quinn hears somebody calling her name and turns over her shoulder where a small group of Skanks are approaching her. "Where've you been? Getting ready for a tea party?"
The girl nods her head at Quinn's baby blue dress and soft bob and gives her a disgusted look as though to say that she knew that Quinn didn't have what it took to fit in with the Skanks.
Quinn can't exactly tell them the truth about why she had dressed up for school today, so she quickly comes up with a lie that her new friends might approve of.
"I had court this morning," she says quickly. The truth is that Quinn has never been to court in her life, and she knows that the Skanks are more than familiar with the experience. If they start pressing for details, Quinn is screwed. She wishes that she anticipated The Skanks questioning her so that she might have come up with something more believable.
"For what?"
"Traffic court," Quinn answers quickly. "Reckless driving."
It is the first thing that pops into her head, and the only reason it does is because her mother had to go to court for reckless driving once when in reality, she probably should have been arrested for a DUI. Luckily, the officer who had pulled her over was familiar with her father, who had slipped him a little something extra for keeping the charges minimal.
"Lose your license?"
"Nah, just a fat fine for Daddy to pay." Quinn eases into her own lie. She finds that she is getting better at that and wonders if she should consider it a good thing. "I got some lunch money off a freshman on the way in, too. Are you guys hungry? I'm buying."
Quinn pulls a twenty dollar bill out of her pocket. This is another lie. She hadn't stolen the money from anybody. It's just some of the leftover tip money that she still had from working over the summer.
"There might be hope for you yet, Fabray," The Skank smirks at Quinn and plucks the money from her fingers. When the group turns away from her towards the cafeteria, the blonde releases a breath of relief she hadn't even realized she'd been holding.
Her secret is safe for now.
Quinn follows her new friends into the cafeteria. The lunch period is already halfway over meaning the room is already packed when they walk in with their food.
While the Skanks are scanning the crowded room for an empty table, Quinn spots Rachel making her way towards the trash cans and immediately starts to wonder why her eyes always seem to automatically find the brunette even when she is not looking for her.
It doesn't take very long until Rachel's eyes tip up and find Quinn's, and it feels like a punch when Rachel gives her an expression like she would rather disappear into the wall than to have this staring contest.
"Walk much loser?"
Quinn holds her breath when she realizes that her Skank friends have also spotted Rachel, and have decided to latch onto her without Quinn even noticing.
The blonde watches the interaction in slow motion.
She knows that she could probably do something to stop the group just by speaking up, but she had just barely escaped the gang with one lie. She is certain she would not be able to get away with another one.
Quinn knows that her guilt will be no consolation to Rachel when the small brunette gets her lunch tray, full with half-eaten food flipped straight up into her chest.
The force of the blow is so hard that Rachel flies into the wall behind her. Her back hits it with a thud that leaves Quinn wincing.
The Skanks do not do Slushees. Slushees are a jock thing and The Skanks hardly wanted to be associated with them.
They don't do the things they do just to hurt somebody's pride and self-esteem, they do them to hurt the person.
They are a brutal group, and are vengeful for no particular reason, and while Quinn never really cared about all that when it was a stranger facing the brunt of a Skank attack, for some reason, seeing them target Rachel ignites a flame inside of her stomach.
Quinn notices a shimmer inside of Rachel's eyes, but with a small sense of pride that she knows she has no right to feel, the tears never fall.
Instead, Rachel throws her tray onto the cafeteria floor and storms out of the room, wiping the strawberry yogurt off her front as best as she can while she does so.
Quinn knows that she isn't laughing at Rachel alongside the rest of the cafeteria, but she hadn't exactly done anything to come to Rachel's defense either, and she certainly wasn't chasing her down now.
The blonde follows the trail of yogurt into the hallway with her eyes. It is the exact same color that her hair had been just last week.
That color had not been chosen by Quinn at random.
The blonde had picked up the box of hair dye from a corner store in Rhode Island one summer day because it reminded her of the two pink lines that she had seen on her pregnancy test on that fateful day two Septembers ago. It reminded her of the card Noah had stolen for her after they found out that they were having a girl. It reminded her of the soft, cotton baby blanket that Beth had been wrapped in on the day that Shelby took her away…
It has never been a coincidence, none of it was and for the first time, Quinn realizes that shame always seems to come to her in the color pink.